


Mine at Christmas

by greerwatson



Category: Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 12:23:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11874339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: FromThe Picts and the Martyrs:"Squashy Hat," exclaimed Dorothea, who had seen him at the same moment, a tall, thin man, with an old tweed hat, working towards them through the crowd."We don't call him that now," said Peggy."We've spent the last two holidays breaking him in," said Nancy.





	Mine at Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elennare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elennare/gifts).



> From _The Picts and the Martyrs_ :
>
>> "Squashy Hat," exclaimed Dorothea, who had seen him at the same moment, a tall, thin man, with an old tweed hat, working towards them through the crowd.
>> 
>> "We don't call him that now," said Peggy.
>> 
>> "We've spent the last two holidays breaking him in," said Nancy.

“Of _course_ you’re staying here over Christmas,” said his sister.  “You always do—if you’re in England, anyway.”

Jim looked at her impatiently.  She had mentioned it in passing before, and he’d brushed her off; but she was starting to get persistent.

“The girls will want you here,” she pointed out, with a winning twinkle in her eye.

Yes, they would.  In fact, that was part of the problem.  (Not the whole of the problem; but he wasn’t about to explain the rest of it.)  He loved his nieces, and thoroughly enjoyed their antics; but Nancy and Peggy were a pair of irresistible forces.  If he were living under the same roof, he’d get no work done over their hols if he didn’t take care to keep some space in his life for Jim Turner as well as Captain Flint.

“We’ve just started more sampling,” he pointed out, chagrined to hear a placatory note in his voice.  “It’s different now, Molly.  I’m not just home for a few weeks!  I’ve moved back to the lake permanently—if the mining venture pans out, that is.”

“Well,” she said with a note of triumph, “you’ll be even nearer High Topps if you stay here!”

This was true.

After a moment she added, “And I’m not suggesting you come right this minute.  Christmas isn’t for a fortnight; and the girls are still at school.  You can do all the mining you fancy till then; and, after all, there’ll be little digging done once the snow’s here.  That makes sense, doesn’t it? Get your samples now; and play around with them in your study over the winter?”

“Winter!” Jim cried.  “Oh, bother it, woman!  I’m not staying here all winter!”

“Well, over Christmas, anyway,” she said quickly.  “Or until the girls leave.”

He looked at her suspiciously.  “Christmas is, at most, the Twelve Days.  _When_ exactly do the girls go?”

“Well, a little later than that,” she admitted.

“I thought so.  Why on earth you want me under your feet for so long …?!”

“Nonsense,” said Molly, successfully hitting a note of plain common sense.  “This is your home as much as it is mine.  In fact, if you hadn’t sold us your share to finance your expeditions, it’d be fifty-fifty yours.  As far as _I’m_ concerned, you’ve as much right to live here as any of us.”

“Which is very generous,” said Jim politely, “but I live on the houseboat now.”

“Which _is_ quiet for writing,” his sister admitted, “given the interruptions round here.  But _Mixed Moss_ is out now, and doing well.  Or …,” she hesitated, “are you writing again?”

“No,” said Jim patiently, “I’m trying to float a mining company.”

And then he left, abandoning his original intention to fetch books from his library.  It would, he thought, be prudent to retire—and leave behind the impression that the argument was over.

* * *

 

After the old car had taken them up to High Topps to fight the fire on the fell, Rattletrap had been reclaimed by its rightful owner.  She now lived in a rented space at the edge of the boatyard in the village on the other side of the lake, the one that his nieces dubbed “Rio”.  Jim used her almost daily to get up to the mine, though he was not averse to taking his sister on shopping trips into town when asked.

He headed south from Beckfoot along the road that ran down the long length of the lake to the town at its foot.  Here he stopped briefly in the main street, to stock up with fresh bread, sausages, and a string of onions, it being early closing day in the village.  Then he continued south to the bridge over the river, and took the left turn leading northwards.  By distance, it was the longer trip to go round the lake; but it was faster than rowing a mile and more to cross from his houseboat to Beckfoot.

He parked the car, waved cheerfully to the old boatbuilder, and headed for the landing stage where he’d moored the rowboat.  There he slung in the string bag with his shopping and shipped oar.  Two coves down the shore was the small blue steam launch that, a few years earlier when he had started to write his memoirs, he had turned into a houseboat in the hope of some quiet and privacy.

Timothy was on deck, looking the wrong way.

“Ship ahoy!” called Jim, and saw his friend turn and scan the water, wave, and come forward, ready to catch the painter as it was thrown to him.

Almost seamanly, thought Jim, with a keen eye on the knot as it was tied.  He himself had shipped out as crew, spending his first few years abroad tramping port to port; but Timothy had headed for land-locked adventure in South America. After a few months on board, though, he was at least getting his lake-legs, if not his sea-legs.

Jim climbed up the aft ladder, dangling the string bag from one arm.

“So, how’d it go?”

“Never did get into my study, old chap.”  Jim sighed, ruefully.  “My sister buttonholed me as soon as I got there, and bored my ear off insisting that I should move back to the house.”

Timothy ducked into the cabin; and Jim, after a quick check that the rowboat was, indeed, secure, followed him inside.

“Want a cup of tea?” asked Timothy.  “I’ll put the kettle on.”  And he went through to the galley.  Jim dumped the shopping, took off his jacket and hung it on a peg, and then grabbed the bag and carried it through, working round Timothy to get everything stowed.

“Sausages tonight?” he asked.

“Sounds good.”

The kettle was set on one of the Primuses, the caddy fetched down, and tea spooned into the pot.

“Ah,” said Jim a few minutes later, seated on one of the beds in the main cabin.  He took a deep draught from his mug.  “I needed that.  You know, I never got offered so much as a biscuit at Beckfoot.  Molly spent so much time trying to talk me into the move that poor old Cooky never got a chance to show her stuff.”

Timothy folded himself down onto the bunk opposite, and set his own mug on the table.  He looked at his friend keenly.  “Do you _want_ to go back to Beckfoot?” he asked.  “I mean, it’s your home—”

“ _This_ is home,” Jim interrupted.

“It’s where you grew up,” said Timothy, “with your sister.  Even after your parents died, your aunt raised you there.  Before we met, you came back from your voyages and stayed there, with Mr and Mrs Blackett—”

“Molly and Bob,” Jim put in.

Timothy ignored this.  “For however long till you went off round the world again.  As for this place,” and he gestured round the cabin, “it’s only a boat, when all’s said and done.  An old boat at anchor.  Very suitable for a bit of privacy while you wrote your book, of course; but not much different from a summerhouse, really.”

“It has a stove,” Jim pointed out.  “A very good and efficient stove.  Last winter, I stayed here quite comfortably—”

“For a couple of weeks till the lake thawed.”

“Yes, I came home for the ice.  What of it?  I did ask if you wanted to come….”

Timothy shrugged.

“Well, all right.  When I came home last winter, we’d hardly known each other more than a few months.  I didn’t _stay_ , though.  I didn’t come back to _stay_ until we got that idea about the copper mine.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“But now we’re here for good.”  Jim paused, with a keen look at his partner.  Their mining company had been started officially.  “ _We_ are back for good.  That means both of us.  As for Christmas….”

“My dear chap,” said Timothy, and blushed.  “Don’t let me keep you from holidaying with your family.  I’ll be quite all right here on my own, you know.”

“You’d be quite all right anywhere,” said Jim—and grinned, thinking of some of the scrapes the two of them had been in South America.  “Still, I’ve no intention of leaving you alone on the boat half the winter just to gallivant off to spend time with my importunate sister and her Amazons.  If you ask me, she just can’t bear the thought of trying to cope with Christmas _and_ those girls at the same time.”

“You must have family Christmas,” said Timothy firmly.  “In fact, I insist on it.”

* * *

 

The next day, Molly crossed the lake in _Amazon_ with the wind in her sails.  She made no stop in the village, but headed straight for the houseboat.  Jim was on his own that day, his attention on the maps that he’d spread out over the table for Timothy had taken the rowboat, collected old Rattletrap, and headed up to High Topps to meet with Slater Bob.  He barely felt the slight bump of the dinghy as it was brought alongside, and was too engrossed to register Molly’s hail.  It was the sound of her step on the deck that startled him into raising his head; and he came out of the cabin to find her already reaching to open the door with the same insouciant assurance as Nancy might have.

“Hah! You _are_ aboard,” she began.  “Quite a bite in the air today.  The wind’s from the north, and we’re fair set for winter.  Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable at Beckfoot?”

Not _again_ , he thought.  “And good morning to you, too,” he said, but ushered her in.  Sister or no, he was host; and he rose to the occasion, if only to prove to her that he could indeed manage fine on the houseboat in all four seasons.  Still, as he puttered about in the galley, putting on the kettle and fetching down mugs, he could not help but think that there might be more going on than met the eye.  What it might be eluded him.

“If it’s a bit cold for you, I’ll start the stove,” he said finally, coming out with the biscuit tin and plonking it down on the table.  “If only to show you that it does actually keep this place quite adequately warm.”

“I know _that_ , Jim,” said his sister.  “Or are you forgetting that I let the girls and their friends have the key last winter?”

He looked down at her quizzically.  “Oh, I’ve _you_ to blame, do I?  I rather thought Nancy must have pinched it.  It’s just her style.  Quite a homecoming, by the way—innocently skating over here with a sled full of baggage and finding the place taken over by a party of brats!”

“Now, be fair.  They aren’t brats:  they’re very decent youngsters.”

“Far more so than your two, certainly.”

Fraternal civilities thus established, Molly opened the tin and looked in to see what her brother was offering.  Behind him, on the Primus, the kettle gently began to whistle.

“Milk?” he asked.

“Please.”

He found a small jug to put it in—he and Timothy would never have bothered—and, as an afterthought, fetched down the canister of sugar.  By the time he had put these on the table and spooned loose tea into the pot from the caddy, the kettle was whistling a hard summons.  As he stilled it by pouring the water into the teapot, a thought occurred to him.  It was quite a horrid thought (and far too plausible); and only habit guided his hands as he put the kettle back and turned off the stove.

“I say, Molly,” he began, in a cautious tone that brought her eyes up immediately from the biscuit tin.  “You haven’t by any chance had a letter from Aunt Maria recently?”

“Why yes!  How did you know?”

“Ohhh … just a lucky guess.”  He turned back to pick up the teapot, and came through to put it on the table.  “That needs a few minutes to steep,” he said.

“It came last week.”  (Just about the time Molly started suggesting he move back to Beckfoot, he thought glumly.)  “Her usual rather prim Victorian style, you know.  Hardly anything I’d have thought would interest you, or I’d have mentioned it.  Mostly about the new vicar and visiting friends and the failings of the jobbing gardener.  Who apparently hasn’t dug over the kitchen bed yet, despite being told twice to do it.”

“Brave man,” Jim managed.

“Did you want to see it?  I may still have it; I don’t think I’ve thrown it out yet.”

“Ah,” began Jim, his voice half-strangled by nervous expectation of the answer, “did she mention her plans for Christmas?”

“Oh!”  A broad smile broke over his sister’s face.  “Is _that_ what’s been worrying you?”  She chuckled.  “No, she’s not inviting herself here, if that’s what you fear.  She’s staying in Harrogate over the holiday.  She intimated that she might have come, though—if Cook weren’t so good, and rich Christmas fare inclining to indigestion.”

“She doesn’t have to eat it,” Jim pointed out, automatically.  “All the more for the rest of us.”

“Why, Jim!  Did you _want_ her to come?” she teased.  “I can always write back and _press_ the invitation.”

“No!!!!”  He jerked forward with the shock of it, and then sat back sheepishly.  “Darn it, Molly, don’t do that to a man.  Especially one inclined to stoutness.  Give me a heart attack.”

“Rich Christmas fare,” she murmured, with a sidelong twinkle, and picked up the teapot to pour.

“Alas, yes,” he said, and patted his sides.

“Well, she has about as much self-control as you do, I suppose,” his sister said sweetly.  “And more common sense.  Are you having sugar, by the way?”

He struggled and gave up.  “Three lumps, please.”

She politely used the tongs to plop them into his mug.  Not looking at him, she said casually, “If I _were_ to write and press her to come, I’m sure the doctor would be willing to give her a powder if she were really in distress.”

“Don’t bother on my account.”  He poured in milk and stirred, feeling the sugar lumps soften and crumble under the spoon, and then melt softly into the tea.

There followed a pause for the first few sips and audible crunching of ginger nuts, during which Molly belatedly realized the motivation behind her brother’s initial query.  “Jim,” she said quietly, “I hope I’m wrong, but—did you honestly think I was trying to persuade you home _without_ telling you Aunt Maria would come?”

He swallowed the biscuit in his mouth, and added a gulp of tea.  “No, no, of course not,” he said quickly—and unconvincingly, as he could see from the look in her eye.

“Well, as she’s _not_ going to be here to plague the life out of you, let me repeat:  you really must come and stay at Beckfoot.  For the holidays, if not the entire winter.”

“Oh, Molly, not again!”  Yesterday he had been taken aback.  Today, he mustered his arguments.  “The mine is not just a hobby:  Timothy and I need to knuckle down and work if we’re to make a go of it.  Please do remember that I’m not just back in the Lakes on holiday.”  Her mouth opened, and he amended hastily, “Though, of course, Christmas _is_ a holiday.”  Feeling guilty, he added, “Look, I’ll come over on the Eve, to help with decorations, the tree, all that.”  He smiled hopefully.

“I really need you there longer.  There’s so much to do.”

“I’ll cut holly,” he offered quickly.  “Come next week one day.  There’s a bush just beyond the garden could do with a trim.”  He hesitated and then added, “I’m more concerned about Timothy, really.”  To his embarrassment, he found himself flushing.

She looked at him quizzically.  “Why?  I assume he has family of his own wanting him home.”

“No, actually.  He … uh … a bit of an estrangement.”

She raised her brow.

“Not sure of the details.”

And man-like had never asked, she supposed.  “Well, if you don’t want him to stay here in your absence,” she said (making what, to her, seemed a reasonable assumption), “I suppose he could go up to town—does he have a club?  Or perhaps the Dixons or Jacksons are taking lodgers again this year.  I know the Walkers aren’t coming; I don’t know about the Callums, though, of course, the rooms may have been booked by someone else.”

“Almost certainly by now,” Jim agreed.

“Or … what about the Atkinsons?”  Mustering enthusiasm, she said, “Jim, that’s the perfect idea, you know.  He stayed there last summer, after all, when he was doing the initial surveys.  I’m sure they’d have him again.”

But he was shaking his head.  “ _I’m_ sure they won’t,” he said.  “They’ve family visiting—their eldest daughter.  Three children:  they’ll be doubling them up as it is.”

“The Tysons?  Maybe the Swainsons?”

“The armadillo hutch?” said Jim drily.  “It already has his name on it.”

She bit her lip.

“He’s not a parcel at the left luggage office, Molly.  He’s my friend.  It surely can’t be _too_ great a stretch of the imagination that I’d not want to abandon him on the other side of the lake while I go gallivanting off to mince pies and Christmas pud!”

Molly looked at him thoughtfully.  He caught this and stopped, with an interrogative quirk of his head.

“You know, there is one absolutely obvious solution to all this.”

* * *

 

Jim slowed the car.  Beside him, Timothy turned his head, but didn’t say anything.  Still, the shift in movement caught Jim’s attention.

“Want to talk to my sister about something,” he said loudly over the noise of the engine.

He glanced over long enough to see Timothy nod, and then turned his attention back to steering sharp right through the gate.

“Won’t be a minute,” he said, getting out, and then turned and leaned back in, hands on the side of the car.  “Do you want to come in?”

Behind him, the door opened.  “Hah!” said Molly, “I thought it must be you.”  She walked towards the car.  “Hello, Mr Stedding. Good to see you.”  She gave a little wave.

Timothy bobbed his head in a travesty of a bow, and said nervously, “How do you do, Mrs Blackett.”

“Come on in.”

“Oh, no!”  He gulped.  “No, no, that’s quite all right.  I’ll just wait out here.”

“Nonsense,” said Jim briskly.  Turning to his sister he said, “Cooky have any of those jam tarts of hers?”

“I think it’s fairy cakes today, but they’re still in the oven.”

“We’ll wait,” he declared.  Then, to Timothy, “Oh, come on, old chap.  We can stay a few minutes, after all, can’t we?  And there’s no way I’m just leaving you out here!”  From long familiarity, he could recognize a flash of terror, quickly suppressed.

After a pause, Timothy opened the car door, unfolded his lankiness, and hesitantly shook Molly’s proffered hand.  Even so, he hung back until shifted off balance by a hearty, encouraging pat on the shoulder.  Jim then followed, half a pace to the side, ensuring he stay on course for the door.  Inside, though, he ruthlessly abandoned his friend to his sister’s hospitality and headed for the kitchen.  The fairy cakes, he was told, were just coming out of the oven and would have to cool a bit before being iced.

He returned to the drawing-room to find Timothy still on his feet, and Molly too, perforce.  “Tea will be coming in a minute,” he said.  “Oh, d-” (he caught himself, with a glance at his sister) “drat you, Timothy, sit down.  Or do you plan to juggle the cakes with the cup and saucer?”

Timothy flushed.  But he sat, wordlessly, in an armchair.

Molly neatly smoothed her skirt and sat on the sofa.  “Well,” she said.  “How are you coming along with the mine?”  Her eyes were on Timothy as she spoke.

His flashed an urgent message to Jim, who gave him a thumbs up and went over to the window.

“Garden’s not too bad for the time of year.  Is that a rose?”

“Last buds,” Molly said, turning her head.  “A bit frost-nipped.”  Her attention returned to Timothy, her voice gentle but insistent.  “I gather from Jim that you’re up there almost daily.  What’s going on?  Some sort of digging?”

“Er … mapping?” he said nervously.  “Samples.”

“Samples of … ore, would that be?”

“Starting.  Long job.”

“Ah.  Yes, Jim said you’d be busy well into next year before the actual _mining_ would start.”

He nodded.

“I suppose you’ll have to stop when the snow gets deep.  The fells can be bad in winter.”

“Likely.  Er … yes.”

“Jim says that you plan to stay on the houseboat over the winter.”

He glanced at Jim.  “Mmmyyes?”  And then, in a longer burst, “He says you want him to stay here, though.”

Jim coughed.  “Well, as I told Molly, I planned to live on the boat.  After all, as far as visiting here is concerned, I can always drive.  Granted, it gets a bit of a nuisance crossing to the boat if the ice along the shore isn’t thick enough to walk on—breaking thin ice with the oars in order to row to the village is a pain in the … darned slow.”  He saw a faint amusement in Timothy’s eyes, but doubted his sister caught it.  “Mind you,” he went on, “most winters there’s a fair thickness.  Not like last year, of course—how often does the lake freeze end to end, after all?—but still … the houseboat will probably be frozen in by January, and I’ll use the sled.”

It seemed to him that Timothy relaxed at this.  Still, he continued to wait and listen.

“The trouble is, though,” Jim went on, “my sister wants me to spend Christmas Eve here, and then stay the night so I’m Johnny-on-the-spot for the whole of Christmas Day.  I dare say she’ll let me off Boxing Day—”  She turned and made a face, and he grinned at her.  “I’ll need to recover, I don’t doubt, especially if you and Cooky lay on your usual feast.”

“The girls expect it,” she said, with a nod.  “So does Cook.”

“But,” Jim went on, turning back to Timothy, “that would, of course, mean you’d be on the boat alone.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Over Christmas?” asked Molly.  “I gather you won’t be going to visit your family.”

A brief look of alarm crossed Timothy’s face.  “No, I … um … no, not going.”

“Well, let me invite you to join us here, then.”  She raised her brow invitingly.

He could swear Timothy blanched.

“We have a guest room,” Molly explained.  “No reason it should stand empty.  I assure you, we can easily put you up.”

“Plenty of food,” put in Jim.

“I—I—nuisance.”

“Not at all.”

“Seriously, old chap.  There _is_ a guest room.  One could even say you’ll be doing it a favour, using it—probably needs airing!”

There was a splutter from Molly, and a quick outraged look over her shoulder.  He winked at her.

“Any friend of Jim’s is a friend of ours,” Molly said reassuringly.

* * *

 

“I suppose there’s no getting out of it,” Timothy said dispiritedly as they rattled up the pebbly, pot-holed road to High Topps.

“Do you good,” said Jim ruthlessly.  “A hearty family Christmas—roast goose and pud, put some flesh on you.”

Timothy’s only response was a sharp downward glance at Jim’s waistline.

“Exactly!”  Jim grinned at him, and then added, “I need to buy presents.  You’d better get something, too.”

“I don’t need a present!”

“For Molly, man!  Your hostess—something nice.  The girls, too.”  He added, as Timothy didn’t respond, “I have no doubt they’ll find something to give _you_.”

“I’m getting second thoughts,” warned Timothy.

“If I know you, it’s more like third and fourth thoughts; but you were right the first time.  There _is_ no getting out of it.”  Jim slowed the car to swerve round a particularly large pot hole.  “I’m damned if I’m leaving you alone over the holiday, you know. And,” he picked up speed again, “unless the mine proves a dud, we’re going to be here a lot.”

There was no response.

“And it’ll get you used to the in-laws,” said Jim firmly.  “So to speak.  My nieces, I mean.”  He chuckled.  “You need to be more than ‘Squashy Hat’, you know.  You’re going to be seeing a lot of them, one way or another.  Might as well throw you in the deep end.”


End file.
